Comment by kdmccormick
2 years ago
To be completely anecdotal: I grew up, live, and work in northeastern US, which according to this comment section seems to be as ask-culture as it gets, but when I work with Europeans I feel like I'm the one bumbling around with assumptions and implicit context, whereas they are more comfortable plainly asking for what they need and politely saying no.
(Or maybe it's function of who I work with from each continent? I work with a range of seniority levels in the US, but the European engineers I get to work with tend to be on the more senior side, and I imagine western business experience and ask-culture-adeptness are corollated).
As an American interacting with Europeans in the US, you are more in tune with the local culture than them. They are probably aware that things are different from what they are used to, thus Europeans (really, most outsiders) are more likely to be up front when communicating with Americans.